The ceremony of the Misteri in Campobasso today

The procession takes place nowadays in the streets of the old town, along a distance of about three and a half kilometres. The sacred parade includes numerous stops, during which the Misteri (Mysteries) are placed on special wooden easels. The ingegni are carried on people’s shoulders, coordinated by a caporale, and require about two hundred bearers. The latter give dynamism to the characters which are encased in the “machines”, moving them with a vibrating rhythm. At one time, the slow pace of the faithful was punctuated by drums and trumpets, today, however, it is accompanied by the notes of Rossini’s Mosè. For some years, the thirteen ingegni, owned by the town of Campobasso, are preserved at the Museum of the Mysteries, run by the Associazione Misteri e Tradizioni. On the website of the Association one can take a virtual tour inside the structure. The exhibition space consists of two rooms and a room for the projection of images and period movies of the event. In the Sala degli ingegni, on other hand, the visitor can admire the thirteen processional “machines” up close.